My mom thinks my boys are overweight...

[KatnissUna]

hello all, I took my boys out tonight in their little playpen, for the first time in a while. I want to start making sure my gerbils get out of their tank more, besides from being held daily. i want to get them a wheel as well, they had one a while ago, but I learned it was much too small and didn't want to harm them. Money is a little tight, and I haven't had much luck finding a good size and price. They are fairly active gerbils for their age I think. 
     My mom wouldn't stop exclaiming how fat my gerbils look, and how they wobble when they walk. She said they have double chins as well. I don't know whether she is simply exaggerating, because she herself had gerbils as a kid.  I had a recent litter of pups born at the 1st of this month, and I feel like compared to them, yes, they would seem large. I can see where she is coming from. But now I am scared they might be truly overweight. So I pulled out my scale that I use to weigh small animals. Lark is the lightest colored one in the pic, weighing around 107 grams, so he is definitely in my opinion overweight. Oakley is the Burmese, at around 93 grams, and the last one is Woodland, the pied black one. Yes, he doesn't have a tail, so I think that may be why he isn't as heavy. I also wonder if he might have back problems, as his tail stump is curved to the left. He was born like this btw. Anyways, Woodland is about I think the scale said like 79-80 grams. As I am sure most of you can guess, weighing gerbils is hard to get accurate. I have included a picture of my boys, are they overweight looking, and is their weight normal or do I need to start on a diet? I am very unfamiliar with pet diets, and I only just found out that some gerbils will eat as much as they possibly can. I also heard that middle-age gerbils will weigh more. They are around 2, Lark and Oakley are more like 2 and a half now. To be honest I am stressing out bigtime about this. I know with humans, the "average" weight can be off, as you have to take muscular build and height into account. 
     Any answers would be great. I feel very very guilty; I should've been weighing them more often. 
        thanks


imgur.com/a/HIZJkWK

[KatnissUna]

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[catnut]

your gerbils' don't seem too overweight but do cut down on any treats and try to stick to their main diet and see if extra time in their playpen works for them, only the one that is 107 may be a bit overweight, if a gerbil is shorter and not long, they can also look rounder due to that. I have Tristan who is around 120 grams but he is close to 4 years old, he is also have some issues but still active when he can be, but cutting treats can help a lot. Your three are adorable!

[KatnissUna]

Feb 26, 2023 14:51:40 GMT -8 catnut said:

your gerbils' don't seem too overweight but do cut down on any treats and try to stick to their main diet and see if extra time in their playpen works for them, only the one that is 107 may be a bit overweight, if a gerbil is shorter and not long, they can also look rounder due to that. I have Tristan who is around 120 grams but he is close to 4 years old, he is also have some issues but still active when he can be, but cutting treats can help a lot. Your three are adorable!

Okay thank you!!! That makes me feel a lot better
     The one who is 107, his father was a bit larger looking like my Lark. Lark has always seemed muscular to me, and I know muscle outweighs fat, but yes, he does seem a little large like you said. I will be sorting out the sunflower seeds from their food from now on lol
     Thanks again!!!

[catnut]

Sunflower seeds can be good for them, just not too many as they will tend to eat just those and not eat the rest of their food, which they also need to stay well. I"m not sure of a number but just not many in the bowl, with 3 that may be difficult,lol. I bet Lark is the greedy one and takes most of the sunnies, lol.

[LilyandDaisy]

It's always hard to guess weight from a photo but they don't look obviously overweight to me. 107g is quite typical for a mature male gerbil. They do tend to gain weight continuously throughout life so I might worry about a gerbil being 107g at, say, 6 months, but a 2.5-year-old male gerbil at 107g wouldn't usually worry me personally. I would just keep an eye on his weight to make sure it's not rapidly increasing, and be mindful with the treats.

I think the cut-off from normal to overweight is largely down to personal opinion as we don't have BMI scales and studies on health complications related to weight like we do for humans, so some people will prefer their gerbils to be slimmer and others might be happy with a heftier body type.

Gerbils tend to carry excess weight around the shoulders and back of the neck. If a gerbil has an obvious "hump" on the back of the neck, it's generally considered that they're overweight, also if they just feel a bit too "well-padded" around that area and you can't easily feel the spine. It's hard to explain but weight is much easier to judge by feel than by photo or even by the number on the scales.

[KatnissUna]

Feb 27, 2023 14:14:20 GMT -8 catnut said:

Sunflower seeds can be good for them, just not too many as they will tend to eat just those and not eat the rest of their food, which they also need to stay well. I"m not sure of a number but just not many in the bowl, with 3 that may be difficult,lol. I bet Lark is the greedy one and takes most of the sunnies, lol.

yeppers, Lark stuffs his mouth with them and runs off LOL

[Markpd]

, yea, maybe you need to hand feed each gerbil their treats, I had to do that with my boys, otherwise I'm sure Blake would have tried to be a hamster and run off with the all!

Re weight, yea what catnut and L&D said, 107g doesn't seem overweight to me, unless he's a small gerbil.
If it's of interest, I kept track of my boys weight throughout their lives and posted it here.
Blake definitely looked somewhat podgy at 120g!